For my Fifth Grade Reading Group

I faciliate a fifth grade reading group. I have six kids - 3 boys and 3 girls. I love meeting with them every week and it never ceases to amaze me what they take away from any given story. I feel like I learn so much more from them than they actually learn from me, but that's just part of being in a book club I guess.

Right now we are reading a book called Touching Spirit Bear together that I epect to be reviewing very soon. In addition to talking about books we have read together though, we also talk about bookds they are reading, what they like about them, what the learned from them, etc.... Since today is the 12th and Lightning Thief hysteria is in full gear, I thought I would offer my thoughts. My kids begged me to read this one - they all know what a Pottermaniac I am, so they wanted to compare and contrast. I finished Lightning Thief and The Sea of Monsters with three more books in the series left to go.

So here are my thoughts so far:

I can definitely see why the book is so appealing, especially to the boys. It is full of action and the story never stops. It is my opinion that this work reads more like a screenplay than a book and I believe that it was the authors intention to make it into a movie all along. I think that the idea of gods and goddesses and more importantly the moving of Mt. Olympus to reflect the heart of Western Civilizaton to be quite interesting. I think that Percy Jackson is very American while Harry Potter is definitely very British. I adored Greek Mythology when I was a child and it was fun to revisit some old favorites in this new venue.

In comparision to Harry Potter - well, Harry is written by J.K. Rowling - a woman and personal hero of mine. She is an amazing author that paints all of her characters with such a fine brush. The character development and plot in Harry is much more advanced and developed than in The Lightning Thief. Rick Riordan writes a good story, but he is like the Arnold Schwartzenegger of the fanasy literature world. Bang, bang, shot it up and make things happen. So far the character development in the first two books relies primarily on the events happening around the characters and not on the characters themselves.

I see many similarities between the two books - both center around three characters - 2 boys and a girl. Both invovle children who are in danger from dark forces surrounding them and both have a safe have for said children - one a school and the other a camp - where said children are "sorted" into houses or cabins. Both have at their heart a young boy about whose future prophecies have been made, and I could go on and one. There are some subtle differences, for example both of Percy's parents are alive, but all in all, I find the similarities remarkable.

I will love Harry until I die. I enjoyed reading Lightning Thief and plan to finish the series, but it will never have the magic that Harry Potter did. That said, I am very much looking forward to the movies which I think will be amazing. Especially since I believe that was the intent of the author from the inception of the story.